KALAMAZOO (WKZO) — The wind has died down which will make it easier for Consumers Energy and other Utility crews in West Michigan to repair the damage left behind by freakish mid-February weather that blew in Friday.
Thousands are without power in West Michigan and some may be in the dark all weekend.
Ricky Castro with the National Weather Service says conditions were just right to whip up windy conditions.
They measured gusts up to 70 mph. What made it so freakish is the lack of precipitation.
It knocked down loose branches and took down wires, causing scattered outages and the kind of real damage to the system that takes more than popping in a new fuse to fix.
Crews have to physically go out and replace lines and power poles that have been damaged and destroyed.
Consumers energy reports that Kalamazoo County suffered the most outages followed by Calhoun County. Most counties in the area suffered well over a thousand each.
Trees were blown over and fell on I-94 in Van Buren County, in Ottawa County it was trash from a landfill that got blown onto an interstate, and there was also a barn fire sparked in Ottawa County by the winds.
